98 Wild Life in a Southern County. 
thoroughfare through increase of population; and 
then the question comes, Who is to repair it? There 
is little or no documentary evidence to be found— 
nothing can be traced except through the memories 
of men; and so they come to the old shepherd, who 
has been stationary all his life, and remembers the 
condition of the lane fifty years since. He always 
liked to drive his sheep along it—first, because it 
saved the turnpike tolls ; secondly, because they could 
graze on the short herbage and rest under the shade 
of the thick bushes. Even in the helplessness of his 
old age he is not without his use at the very last, and 
his word settles the matter. 
In the winter twilight, after a fall of snow, it is 
difficult to find one’s way across the ploughed fields of 
the open plain, for it melts on the south of every 
furrow, leaving a white line where it has ledged on 
the northern side, till the furrows resemble an endless 
succession of waves of earth tipped with foam-flecks 
of snow. These are dazzling to the eyes, and there 
are few hedges or trees visible for guidance. Snow 
lingers sometimes for weeks on the northern slopes of 
the downs—-where shallow dry dykes, used as land- 
marks, are filled with it: the dark mass of the hill is 
streaked like the black hull of a ship with its line of 
white paint. Field work during what the men call 
‘the dark days afore Christmas’ is necessarily much 
restricted and they are driven to find some amuse- 
ment for the long evenings—such as blowing out 
